I hear you. I'm self taught. I was always the go to guy when there was a problem. I had no one I could ask. Teachers asked me. But no one hired me. So I became self employed. I wonder how much better I would've done if I actually went studying and had a mentor. But I was always on the frontier, always. I also fixed so many bad student projects, aka where someone would hire a student for cheap and the student would abandon the project and I had to step in to finish it. Ah well it is what it is. Nowadays I feel like an outsider, probably because I am. Still being self employed but my projects crashed and income is way below sustainable. So either create something new, but I'm getting old and tired and bored, or find a job, but I'm too used to the comfort of working when I feel like it and not being on a clock. Anyhow I digress and if I had a proper teacher in my young years, how much better could I have done. I'd imagine an increased learning speed of factor at least 5 if not 10. Also not studying means not knowing the language e.g. log(o) or w/e. I never knew what "scalar" meant when I read it, but I knew without having a label "scalar". etc etc